Through meditation, I asked to meet my archetype. This was back in 2002. I recorded the experience in my personal Book of Shadows, so that I can look back at it and keep learning from it.
Carl Jung (1875-1961), a psychiatrist, studied many means of divination and concluded that divination systems allow us to tap into the collective unconscious, the subconscious awareness of all humans as a group. The knowledge of the collective unconscious is organised in symbols ( remember that symbols, not words, speak to the unconcious) called archetypes.
Achetypes are like characters from myths. Jung and many people after him, for instance, the mythologist Joseph Campbell, noticed that the characters in myths across all cultures had certain similarities.
The Great Mother is an example of an archetype; so too, is the Wise Old Man. Characters that fit these architypes appear in many of our most popular stories and films -from Cinderella to The Wizard of Oz to Star Wars.
The Shadow Self is the archetype that represents the dark, weak, ugly or unacceptable side of each of us.
At the time of my archetype meditation, I was keenly interested in the Tarot and the symbolism behind them.
Tarot cards are a great divination tool that people have been using for centuries, that dates back to the fifteenth century.
A tarot deck consists of 78 cards (22 are Major Arcana and 56 are Minor Arcana cards). The Minor Arcana are much like regular playing cards. They each have meanings that relate to their suit and number. The Major Arcana have pictures on them that represent the significant issues or phases in an individual's spiritual developement.
In Archetype - Part 2, I will tell of my experience and visions I had whilst in a deep meditation. The tarot deck plays it's part in my interpretation of the characters that appear to me. Everybody's interpretation of the same symbols is personal and individual to them. We take what we need to to learn and move forward with our lives.
